PC Traders and quests need to be nerfed

[pApA^LeGBa]

Okay, but this isn't really a balance issue. Even once they balance everything perfectly a quick jaunt into a tougher biome is going to net you loot at a higher lootstage. That is the way the game is designed and that is player choice. If you are a player who WANTS to craft your own gear and ENJOYS a slow progression, then don't make those choices. Daring Adventurer, Lucky Looter, Snow, Wasteland, and Desert biomes are all things you can ignore if you don't want the stuff you find and buy to be way beyond what you can craft. For people who love to buy great stuff and gain great rewards and find amazing loot, those perks and going into biomes you aren't suited for are fun.

Things like this will ALWAYS be in the game because it allows players to choose how they want to play. If you go into the wasteland and come back with great loot beyond what you can craft then that is what you want.

Well then they should make sure the game doesn´t send you in a biome with higher lootstage if you happen to spawn near biome borders, at least in early game. That is a balance issue imo. Asking the player to ignore the cars on the road right next to where he lives when sent into that biome for a quest is quite lazy. 

Also you find way better loot than you can craft in the forest already due to POI lootstage. Or are we also supposed to regulate that balance by ourselves by only doing T1 and T2 POI`s making the game repetitive?

 

[Gr.o.m.]

I don’t see it as wanting to make it tougher so much as wanting gear to be something we mostly craft instead of mostly buy or find.  Right now finding or buying or being rewarded with something beyond what you can craft kind of takes the wind out of your sails if you like crafting your own stuff.  
 

When you just need a few more magazines to be able to craft a higher tier than you have it makes finding those magazines exciting. When you need 16 more magazines just to match what the trader gave you then it makes it much less exciting. 

I can remember the times, where I did not care to go to the trader or look into its inventory because there was no reason to do it.

If I can not expect the trader to have a good item, why bother to look into its inventory? Raw resources? Who cares if you can grind them in even greater quantities and for free with mining and wrenching? Parts? You find loads of parts while looting, if you craft every 2nd or 3rd tier improvement?

At least it would free up one inventory space because you smelt your dukes into brass and can throw away any one you find while looting.

 

[Ramethzer0]

Hey!
So traders are kinda insane and the quests in particular even more so, they can completely annihilate any progression in the game. Example -
im day 3 in my game, im quite enjoying collecting the magazines and getting the ability to craft better stuff as I go, the progression feels good! 
The best tools I can craft now are level 3 stone tools. I was doing quests for the traders, and on a tier 2 quest rewards I got offered a iron axe level 4, i thought ok, that's a bit OP, but i'll take it, iron vs stone is not such a huge difference it's the next step, ill have to work a bit more on my tool skills to match up the crafting to it. Next quest I get a iron shovel level 3. Which is still not so bad since it's just iron. But next quest still tier 2, i get a steel pickaxe level 4, wait what, I couldnt even  make a pickaxe yet at all, and Im already at steel 4, in tier 2? That's not right at all. 
And this same way for everything, every single upgrade i have gotten a whole tier better weapon, or tool from quest rewards. I think the rewards should be severely limited to tiers of the quest.
Proposed fix:
Limit item qualities you can get depending on tier of the quest, it could go something like this, with probably some tweaking -
Tier 1 quest - only give iron 1-2 tools and equivalents for weapons as maximum for tier 1.
tier 2 quest - only give iron tools 3-5 and equivalents
tier 3 quest - only give steel 1-2
Tier 4 quest - only give steel 3-5

tier 5 quest - machine tools 1-2

tier 6 - machine tools 3-5. 

keeping level 6 tools and weapons all only for crafting, since the progression system really is fun, but at the moment there is absolutely no point to it. Im even contemplating not doing trader bartering and quests at all next playthroughs, since it completely destroys the progression and makes it too easy.

P.S I had no skill points into anything like better bartering or anything that has anything to do with traders.

First of all, welcome to the forums.  What you have experienced is somewhat normal, somewhat not.  The current loot and reward system could use some tweaking, and it will get it for sure.  But, you're not the first person to be the victim of the RNGeesus.  And don't worry, there will come a time when that RNG wont work in your favour so much.  So, be prepared for the pendulum to swing.

 

[Roland]

I can remember the times, where I did not care to go to the trader or look into its inventory because there was no reason to do it.

If I can not expect the trader to have a good item, why bother to look into its inventory? Raw resources? Who cares if you can grind them in even greater quantities and for free with mining and wrenching? Parts? You find loads of parts while looting, if you craft every 2nd or 3rd tier improvement?

At least it would free up one inventory space because you smelt your dukes into brass and can throw away any one you find while looting.

Good point. No matter how they tip the balance either toward crafting or toward acquiring, someone isn't going to be happy-- especially since they want both pathways to be an option in the game.

 

[Slingblade2040]

Okay, but this isn't really a balance issue. Even once they balance everything perfectly a quick jaunt into a tougher biome is going to net you loot at a higher lootstage. That is the way the game is designed and that is player choice. If you are a player who WANTS to craft your own gear and ENJOYS a slow progression, then don't make those choices. Daring Adventurer, Lucky Looter, Snow, Wasteland, and Desert biomes are all things you can ignore if you don't want the stuff you find and buy to be way beyond what you can craft. For people who love to buy great stuff and gain great rewards and find amazing loot, those perks and going into biomes you aren't suited for are fun.

Things like this will ALWAYS be in the game because it allows players to choose how they want to play. If you go into the wasteland and come back with great loot beyond what you can craft then that is what you want.

This whole idea of oh just ignore perks, ignore biomes, ignore traders is insane and shows a really imbalanced game.  Telling experienced and new players that they need to ignore all of that if they want to craft is ridiculous. Heck even you calling it slow progression shows the ridiculous imbalance that traders and their quests rewards have made along with this whole loot bonus stuff from PoIs and biomes.

Telling players to literally ignore a massive portion of game content due to terrible balancing issues shows the kind of state this game is in even after 21 alphas.

Make stuff trader and biome exclusive. Didn't spawn near the gun trader? Oh well go out and explore for that trader. Remove the the whole loot bonus nonsense from PoIs and biomes.

And before the whole think of the new players stuff is brought into this i wish the pimps would stop treating new players like they are brain dead and can't get the grasp of this game. This game isn't that complicated or difficult that they can't get the hang of it after a few hours or watching some YouTube LP.  For some reason some folks here like to use new players as the scapegoats for certain decisions that either dumb down gameplay or as a way to justify certain imbalances.

 

[Gr.o.m.]

Good point. No matter how they tip the balance either toward crafting or toward acquiring, someone isn't going to be happy-- especially since they want both pathways to be an option in the game.

If any kind of balance is going to happen.

At the moment there are so many things broken.

Using stone tools with one perk point in miner 69er and going out of stamina.

Finding weapon crafting magaines at the rate of 1 per day and I am talking of a 4 men group doing 2-3 quests per day. Day 12 bow 12, handgun 13.

The state of agility in general. At the moment it would be an improvement if you remove the complete attribute from the game.

Good luck trying to nerv acquiring. Even if you can not buy any good items at the trader (deathsentence for the daring adventurer and better barter skill) and can not get good items as a quest reward. No problem, go to the wasteland and use quests to reset your favorite poi. If you don't get better loot by looting poi, no problem stay in the wood biome and use quests to reset the book shops.

 

[Roland]

This whole idea of oh just ignore perks, ignore biomes, ignore traders is insane and shows a really imbalanced game.  Telling experienced and new players that they need to ignore all of that if they want to craft is ridiculous. Heck even you calling it slow progression shows the ridiculous imbalance that traders and their quests rewards have made along with this whole loot bonus stuff from PoIs and biomes.

Telling players to literally ignore a massive portion of game content due to terrible balancing issues shows the kind of state this game is in even after 21 alphas.

Make stuff trader and biome exclusive. Didn't spawn near the gun trader? Oh well go out and explore for that trader. Remove the the whole loot bonus nonsense from PoIs and biomes.

And before the whole think of the new players stuff is brought into this i wish the pimps would stop treating new players like they are brain dead and can't get the grasp of this game. This game isn't that complicated or difficult that they can't get the hang of it after a few hours or watching some YouTube LP.  For some reason some folks here like to use new players as the scapegoats for certain decisions that either dumb down gameplay or as a way to justify certain imbalances.

Nobody is telling anyone to ignore anything if they don’t want to.  There are plenty of players who skip all the crafting and just use the trader and are happy with it. There are players who go straight to the wasteland and loot high level gear and are very pleased with that.  
 

There are also players who stick to the forest and minimize their quests and who craft most of their stuff and who are happy. 
 

It appears that the only people who are unhappy are those who hate getting gear above what they can craft but can’t help themselves from doing activities that skip the crafting progression anyway and so they need the game to limit them forcibly from playing in a way that will ruin their fun. 
 

The end of this balancing road that people are asking for is going to be more restrictions that result in less sandbox elements— Just so everyone understands what is necessary in order to stop the few players who lack the impulse control to not optimize the fun out of the game for themselves….

 

[Slingblade2040]

Nobody is telling anyone to ignore anything if they don’t want to.  There are plenty of players who skip all the crafting and just use the trader and are happy with it. There are players who go straight to the wasteland and loot high level gear and are very pleased with that.  
 

There are also players who stick to the forest and minimize their quests and who craft most of their stuff and who are happy. 
 

It appears that the only people who are unhappy are those who hate getting gear above what they can craft but can’t help themselves from doing activities that skip the crafting progression anyway and so they need the game to limit them forcibly from playing in a way that will ruin their fun. 
 

The end of this balancing road that people are asking for is going to be more restrictions that result in less sandbox elements— Just so everyone understands what is necessary in order to stop the few players who lack the impulse control to not optimize the fun out of the game for themselves….

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

 

[Roland]

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

You must know that I’m talking about frequency and intensity of those activities and so it makes me wonder what your agenda is in your obvious misrepresentation.

I didn’t say avoid doing doing those activities at all. I said avoid power grinding or going into high Lootstage biomes so early if you want to craft. 
 

You’re basically pleading with the developers to force a limit on daily questing and gating the biomes to forcibly prevent players from going there until certain conditions are met. No matter how much balance is applied, as long as players have the freedom to go anywhere and spam anything from day 1 there will always be an optimization path that such people will claim is the only successful way to play. 
 

Hope you’re happy if the devs do decide to protect optimizers from themselves. So far they’ve been fine with letting people choose how they play. 
 

 

[Riamus]

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

It is telling people to choose a play style they enjoy and to do that play style and not worry about whether or not another play style is "better".  It is perfectly reasonable to play only the parts of the game you enjoy playing.  The problem is what Roland mentioned, that some people can't help but to do the most efficient way even if they don't enjoy it.  But that is a choice and the game shouldn't force people to play in a certain way if they don't want to (within limits).

I don't think anyone is saying the game doesn't need balancing between the various options you have for progression.  I think that is what you and others are missing.  Balance is definitely needed and people agree with you on that.  Crafting is too slow and not worth it at higher tiers.  Quest rewards have too high a chance to give better than average equipment.  It should be possible but it should be a situation where you are very lucky and not just a normal thing.  Trader inventory should not increase anywhere near as quickly.

But regardless of these things, it doesn't change the fact that if you don't like doing something, don't do it.  I find it cheesy to go to the wasteland in the early game in order to loot cars for better loot, so I don't do it.  Simple.  That didn't hurt my game at all to ignore a "more efficient" way of progressing.

If anything, I think the game should be set up to make it far more difficult to handle a higher tier POI or biome early in the game so that the risk is greater to make up for the greater reward.  If that kind of progression were slowed, I think it would help a lot, though speed runners wouldn't appreciate it.

 

[BFT2020]

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

You can do all that and still craft everything you want to.  Nobody is saying use that shiny new weapon you found while looting or doing a quest.  Instead, turn it into scrap parts to use for crafting, or sell it to a trader to get dukes so you can buy those weapon or tool parts you need to craft those items.

 

[theFlu]

Nobody is saying use that shiny new weapon you found while looting or doing a quest. 

You're seriously going for broken windows economics..? Break it just so you can have the work of fixing it?

 

[Slingblade2040]

You must know that I’m talking about frequency and intensity of those activities and so it makes me wonder what your agenda is in your obvious misrepresentation.

I didn’t say avoid doing doing those activities at all. I said avoid power grinding or going into high Lootstage biomes so early if you want to craft. 
 

You’re basically pleading with the developers to force a limit on daily questing and gating the biomes to forcibly prevent players from going there until certain conditions are met. No matter how much balance is applied, as long as players have the freedom to go anywhere and spam anything from day 1 there will always be an optimization path that such people will claim is the only successful way to play. 
 

Hope you’re happy if the devs do decide to protect optimizers from themselves. So far they’ve been fine with letting people choose how they play. 
 

That's literally saying don't play the game as intended if you want to craft and giving no examples.  What the heck is power grinding?

I've literally just gave an example of playing the game as you folks have intended which is doing trader quests which is an integral part of this games content and even possibly future story.  This isn't some most effective or efficient path nonsense this is playing the game as the pimps have intended. 

This literally kills the whole learn by looting system they just implemented.

How is a new player even supposed to know hey don't quest alot cause you will make crafting pointless. Hey slow your roll on the frequency of your activities and how you play cause it throws the game off balance. Even at base default settings.

You can do all that and still craft everything you want to.  Nobody is saying use that shiny new weapon you found while looting or doing a quest.  Instead, turn it into scrap parts to use for crafting, or sell it to a trader to get dukes so you can buy those weapon or tool parts you need to craft those items.

I don't see how you are even trying to be serious with that suggestion. Might as well say hey that gear you got from a raid yeah scrap it for crafting materials even though it's an obvious upgrade. 

No players and especially new players would even consider doing something like that because it makes no sense. 

 

[theFlu]

as the pimps have intended. 

But you just can't know that they didn't intend for you to stare at the campfire mesmerized for 3 days a week. That way the airdrop books would keep your crafting skills up to date!

(Sorry. This thread is so much of weirdness that I'm just going with silly at this point ... )

 

[Roland]

That's literally saying don't play the game as intended if you want to craft and giving no examples.  What the heck is power grinding?

The way I play the game results in mostly the experience that I like. That’s why I play it that way. For example:

I usually do about one quest per day (60 minute days or less) and mix in other tasks and objectives such as harvesting materials for building and looting nearby POIs to find a cooking pot and other materials for cloth armor, a dew collector, and hunting for meat. I usually stick to the forest until a trader quest takes me into a new biome. 
 

“Power Grinding” is a term I use to mean completing quests as quickly as possible to the exclusion of all else for the purpose of rapidly moving up the quest tiers to get to the best rewards as soon as possible. 
 

There is nothing wrong with that playstyle as long as it results in fun for the person playing that way. When I play where I take roughly a job per day, I find that I do craft a lot of things before I find or am offered better as a reward. I’d like things to be balanced a bit more towards crafting but it feels pretty good. 
 

There’s also nothing wrong with going into a tougher biome early on to get better loot if that’s what you want. I’m not calling on anyone to stop doing that stuff if it brings them fun and satisfaction. 
 

When I play the way I described,  my focus is on living a natural sort of life within the game world and it is fun for me to play that way even if there are faster methods of earning dukes and getting top tier gear, etc.  I often don’t spend skill points until I’ve built up 4-5 of them because it isn’t my first focus. I’m not saying everyone should play my way but it is a good way to be more of a crafting player. 
 

 

[FinkPloyd]

There are settings to adjust loot, loot respawn, etc

Could settings be added to adjust trader inventory / quest rewards?

 

[RipClaw]

There are settings to adjust loot, loot respawn, etc

Could settings be added to adjust trader inventory / quest rewards?

Theoretically, this should be possible for the trader inventory. The trader inventory in A21 is controlled via the trader stage and it should be technically possible to add a multiplier to the calculation.

It's a different story with the quest rewards. As far as I know, quest rewards are controlled by loot groups. Each quest tier has a different loot group. So a multiplier would be useless in that case. Maybe they could make the chances of getting certain items variable, so that someone who wants to craft most of their gear has a higher chance to get parts instead of a weapon or a tool.

 

[BFT2020]

You're seriously going for broken windows economics..? Break it just so you can have the work of fixing it?

I don't see how you are even trying to be serious with that suggestion. Might as well say hey that gear you got from a raid yeah scrap it for crafting materials even though it's an obvious upgrade. 

No players and especially new players would even consider doing something like that because it makes no sense. 

Yes, not only am I serious with that suggestion, I actually play that way.  Started playing that way back in Alpha 19.  Only using equipment that I could craft myself.  I allowed myself to use equipment from looting in A20, but since I couldn't repair it, I still had to use equipment I crafted myself as finding something that had more than half durability was hard to find..  Will be doing that in A21 now that the game is stable and I mod it so you don't see a lot of equipment above Q3 and traders don't give out quest rewards anymore.

But hey, not everyone is up for the challenge.

 

[meganoth]

I usually do about one quest per day (60 minute days or less) and mix in other tasks and objectives such as harvesting materials for building and looting nearby POIs to find a cooking pot and other materials for cloth armor, a dew collector, and hunting for meat. I usually stick to the forest until a trader quest takes me into a new biome. 

My group does all that, including taking every flower pot and wrenching of kitchens, and we still can do more than one quest a day at game start. We would have to artificially step on the brakes to do what you do. And we have fun doing more than one quest a day, so the argument that we remove the fun of playing with this doesn't work. Only that at the end we have finished the game much too early. 

And there are ways to balance the game, some of which wouldn't even matter to your playstyle. For example reigning in the trader would not, equalizing magazine drop chances for different types would not, though increasing magazine drop rates would.

So I don't see the solution in following your advice (which, lets be honest, not many will do), but in a better balanced game.

 

[meganoth]

Yes, not only am I serious with that suggestion, I actually play that way.  Started playing that way back in Alpha 19.  Only using equipment that I could craft myself.  I allowed myself to use equipment from looting in A20, but since I couldn't repair it, I still had to use equipment I crafted myself as finding something that had more than half durability was hard to find..  Will be doing that in A21 now that the game is stable and I mod it so you don't see a lot of equipment above Q3 and traders don't give out quest rewards anymore.

But hey, not everyone is up for the challenge.

If someone plays with 300% XP, 25% loot, 300% loot, no trader or adds a mod or follows self-imposed rules then I would normally ignore him when he talks about balance of the game. I.e. his experience is not a measure for the vanilla game. If you disagree for any of the above cases, please explain why the situation is different.